


Here, There, and Everywhere ex. Chapters

by Sweasley



Series: Teddy & Vic [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, First Time, Harry Potter Next Generation, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Romance, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:01:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24066277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweasley/pseuds/Sweasley
Summary: Some additional content, M rated chapters of my story "Here, There, and Everywhere." The series as a whole, as well as the story, is rated T, so these were posted separately.
Relationships: Teddy Lupin/Victoire Weasley
Series: Teddy & Vic [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1748590
Kudos: 27





	1. CH. 6: M: Smoke and Steam

Alone in her room, Victoire dropped the lid of her school trunk and listened as it snapped shut. She bent over to bolt the latches, making sure the trunk was definitely fastened before kicking it for good measure. It looked secure and ready for the long haul up to Hogwarts. That was it, then. She'd finished packing. The last time she'd ever have to pack up her things for the first day of school. The more she considered that, the more she realized that that was a rather sad thought. With all the dreading she'd been doing about having to leave Ted for months at a time, she hadn't really faced what was now in store for her.

Seventh year. That meant all of the people who had caused her drama in the past would be gone. Colleen Lynch, Penelope Shears—they were a thing of the past. All of the boys she'd spent time worrying about or contemplating where their heads were at one point or another had also graduated. As it looked, her year was looking as if it would be completely dedicated to school.

Her eyebrow involuntary rose at that thought. If she and Ted stayed as great as they were; if Whit remained as rational and fun to be around as she always was; if she had no other issues with anyone else at school, then she was looking at a completely drama free year. She hadn't had one of those since…

"Second year," she mumbled to herself. What on earth was she going to do with herself?

There was a sudden knock at her door that caused her to snap out of her thoughts. "It's open."

The door opened, and behind it, a familiar head of brown, straight, shoulder-length hair appeared with the smiling face of Jane Whitters attached to it. She looked a little sunburned, though still cheerful, and waved as she entered. "Surprise."

"Whit!" Victoire's face lit up. "What are you…? You're back!"

"I am," Whit said before rushing over to hug her. "Yeah, I just got back yesterday night. I've spent my day running around with Jack and trying to get everything in order for school tomorrow." She pointed back behind her and out into the hallway. "Then I convinced him to come over because I wanted to say hi. He's in with your brother now."

Victoire beamed. "You have no idea how much I've missed you. You're not allowed to go on holiday ever again. It's official. I've decided."

"You were in France for double the time I was away," Whit laughed as she went and plopped onto Victoire's bed.

"Too late," she smiled, "I've made my decision. You have no say."

Whit shook her head, but still smiled. "You're packing, then?"

"Just finished. I wanted to make sure I was completely ready to go before I went out tonight."

"With Ted?"

She smiled.

"And how are things with Ted?" Whit asked, glancing back at her. "I'm sure he kept you busy."

Victoire sat on the top of her trunk, but was already fighting a losing battle with trying not to smile. She let out a happy sigh. "Things are…really great."

"Yeah?" asked Whit, matching her smile.

She nodded and continued smiling. "Better than I could have thought they'd be." She slowly began to frown. "And now I have to go back to school."

Whit forced a sympathetic smile.

"Yeah…" she murmured, grabbing at the ends of her hair and absently started examining them. "I was just thinking about how drama free this year is going to be with everyone I don't like being gone."

"I'd say that's something to look forward to," Whit offered.

"It'll be different," said Victoire as she looked out the window. "I don't even know what I'm going to do with myself."

"Pass your N.E.W.T.s with the highest marks possible."

"I'd better," she said with a quick laugh. "I'm going to have nothing better to do."

"We'll have fun this year." said Whit.

"Oh, I know," Victoire said quickly before she stood up from her trunk and walked to her bed to sit beside her. "It's not as if I'm worried, it's just…I don't know." She sighed. "But anyway, enough about me. How was your holiday? I want to hear all about it."

Whit sat up straighter and rather excitedly began recalling every detail of the last two weeks that she'd spent in the Bahamas. She seemed exceptionally happy about her trip and was all too excited to tell someone else about everything she'd seen and done while she was away. She was even thrilled to share the part where she claimed to have been bitten by some horrible sounding fish with sharp teeth.

"I think I'll have a little scar," Whit said as she showed Victoire the spot on her arm where she'd been bitten.

"And you went back in the water after that thing bit you?"

"Well, yeah," she said obviously. "I wasn't going to pass on the chance to swim in that gorgeous ocean. It was crystal blue."

Victoire stared at her, but laughed as she looked away. "You're much braver than I would have been."

"I had to be put in Gryffindor for some reason," she joked.

Victoire laughed and stretched her legs in the air, grabbing them by the ankles in order to stretch them as far as possible. "Hey, what time is it?"

"Quarter to six," Whit said. "What time are you meeting Ted?"

"Six."

"Do you have big plans?"

"I suppose we do," she shrugged. "He's got this thing at work tomorrow, so we thought we'd stay in and just enjoy our last night."

Whit smiled a little. "Wow, four months would be hard, especially since you've just gotten together."

She nodded lamely.

"I mean, I was gone for two weeks and I missed Jack like mad. I don't know how I'd manage four months."

"Turn the knife a little bit further, why don't you?"

Whit made an amused noise. "I'm sorry."

Victoire sighed and sat up on the bed, glancing at her closet. She should probably change before she headed over to Ted's, but she never knew what to wear when it came to just lounging around with him. Most of her clothes he claimed were "too nice" for when they sat around. The way he made it sound, she all but lived in dress robes, but this wasn't the case. They were just on complete opposite sides of the fashion spectrum. She took care of her clothes and took pride in looking nice and put together, whereas he…didn't seem to care. Not that this was something she'd recently discovered, of course. She knew this about him since they were small, but it certainly made trying to figure out what to wear in these situations a royal pain.

"Did you hear Jack made Quidditch Captain?" Whit asked, right as Victoire finally stood to walk to her closet.

Victoire turned and threw her a funny smile before she began pulling several items of clothing out to examine them. "Nicki was upset."

"Was she?" Whit asked, sounding surprised. "When I asked Jack if she knew, he claimed she took it really well."

"Yeah, to his face she smiled and congratulated him," Victoire said as she held up one shirt, "but…"

"She really wanted it, too?"

She nodded, but quickly looked back at Whit. "Too? I wasn't aware Jack really wanted it?"

"Apparently, he did," she murmured. "He's excited."

"Really?"

"Uh-huh," Whit said. "And it was one of the first things he said to me when I saw him for the first time after getting back." She made a funny face. "Something like, 'Hi! You're back! I'm Quidditch Captain!' All in one quick breath."

Victoire laughed and turned back to her closet. "When he told us, he made it seem like it was no big deal at all." She shrugged. "I guess both he and Dominique were putting on a bit of a show."

"He's definitely excited about it," Whit said lazily. "It's good, I guess. I mean, I'll be really busy this year with N.E.W.T.s, so at least it'll keep him occupied."

Victoire nodded as she held up two shirts—a purple and a blue one. "Which one should I wear?"

Whit eyed them both. "The blue one. It'll make your eyes stand out."

She nodded as if she agreed, but still hesitated. "True, but the purple makes my boobs stand out," she glanced at her chest, "which, let's face it, I need all the help I can get there."

Whit rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, your chest is perfectly proportional to the rest of your body."

"Yes, but my proportions are small," she said obviously, gesturing up and down herself. "I'm small everywhere." She pointed to her chest. "Everywhere."

"How you manage to find flaws is beyond me," Whit muttered. "Honestly, any time I feel cruddy or blah, I just tell myself, 'You know, Jane, it's probably all in your head, because if Victoire can somehow manage to find something wrong with her, then you know everyone has these sorts of days…"

"Ha-ha," Victoire mumbled before she glanced between the blue and the purple. She narrowed her eyes in concentration. Which one should she pick? Wearing blue did tend to make her eyes look nice, but drawing attention to her chest and looking a little sexy was also something that sounded appealing at the moment. Even though she knew no matter what shirt she wore, one way or another, her chest would end up getting attention.

"Boobs or eyes…" Whit said, as though attempting to add to Victoire's train of thought. "Which one do you want to accentuate more?"

She sighed. "It's not like it really matters."

"Because it'll end up off at some point anyway?"

Victoire grinned a little.

Whit shrugged. "So, which one matches his rug? Might as well have it match that since it'll spend most of its time there."

Victoire's jaw dropped, but she couldn't help but laugh. "Whit!"

"Am I wrong?"

Victoire was silent for a long moment before she turned to hang the blue shirt back up. "No. I'm just…" she held up the purple one and examined it, "surprised you actually said it." She gestured to the shirt in her hand. "I've made my decision."

"I'm sure Ted will be happier for it."

Victoire quickly proceeded to change her shirt and straighten herself out in the mirror. She reached out for her hairbrush and began absently brushing her hair out in a precise manner, piece by piece as she always did. She noticed that the light blonde highlights she's attained from hours and hours spent in the sun while in France were fading completely now, just as her tan had. Her hair was back to the strawberry blonde color she was accustomed to, and her skin was back to looking pasty and white; just in time for school.

She turned to face Whit and made a gesture to herself, as if silently asking how she looked.

"Lovely," Whit said from the bed.

"You don't think I look too dressed up?"

She shook her head. "You look normal."

Victoire nodded as she stared at herself in the mirror once more. She let out a very heavy breath. "All right, then." She turned back around to Whit, forcing a small smile. "I'm ready to go."

Whit sat up and threw her an encouraging smile. "You seem sad."

"I am, but that's just because I know I'll have to say bye to him tonight." She looked away. "And I don't want to do that."

"Don't think about that," Whit said as she also stood. "Just enjoy yourself."

"Still," she said. "I can't help but remind myself."

"I know." Whit nodded before she pulled open Victoire's bedroom door and walked first out into the hallway. "I'm going to go and see what they're—" she pointed towards Louis's room, where he and Jack most likely were "—up to, but I'll see you first thing tomorrow."

"Eleven o'clock on the train," Victoire muttered, taking the first few stairs that lead down to the bottom level. "Wouldn't miss it."

"You can't afford to miss it," Whit joked. "But have fun."

Victoire threw her one last smile before making her way down the rest of the stairs, stopping just as she reached the living room. Her father was sitting on the sofa with the Wireless playing nearby; the all too familiar tunes of the Weird Sisters emitting from it. He looked hard at work, reading several pieces of parchment spread out over the coffee table in front of him. Currently, he was examining one in particular quite closely. He didn't seem to notice her standing at the entrance way.

"Hey, Dad?"

He looked up at her. His expression quickly turned curious once he noticed she was dressed to leave. "Are you going somewhere?"

She nodded. "Just for a few hours."

"Where?"

She stepped into the living room. "Ted's."

He hummed a little and glanced back down at the document in front of him. He seemed preoccupied, which could either be a good or a bad thing. The lack of questions and jokes as to why she was, yet again, spending another night with Ted was a plus, though, he could easily be busy and in too poor of a mood to care. If he was in too poor of a mood, he may not see the point in her going out tonight. He might tell her she couldn't go. This was something she didn't want to leave to chance.

"Mum said I could," she added, which was the truth. She had made sure to clear it with her mother days ago that she could go out tonight on the condition that she was home by ten o'clock. At the time, Victoire had also counted on her mother being here to back up this claim; not working late at the bank.

"Did she?" he asked without looking up from his paper.

Victoire nodded. "She did."

"Are you all packed?"

She nodded again. "I am."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

He hummed again. "All right. Don't stay out late."

"I won't," she said as she watched him absently continue to read for a few moments longer. It was then that she was struck with a small, odd pang in the pit of her stomach. For the first time since she and Ted had gotten together, she wished she hadn't made a point of lying about this for the last month. Her parents trusted her, and here she was breaking that trust by lying to them about how she was spending her time over and over again.

Perhaps she was overestimating the way they would react. Standing here now, it seemed like a rather stupid thing to lie about; particularly because of how much she really did care about Ted. Her parents probably would have been able to see that, but the lying and sneaking around wasn't going to help them to understand. It was just going to make them angry. It was probably going to blow up in her face. Why had she decided to keep this a secret again? She couldn't even remember.

"Dad?"

He looked up at her again. His face was tired, but he was staring at her expectantly. She should say something, but she realized that if she did, he might get mad and tell her she couldn't go see Ted tonight. As much as she wanted to come clean—and as much as she knew she should—if she was going to suffer the angry fallout of her parents one way or another, she might as well get one last hurrah out of things.

She smiled a little. "I just wanted to say I love you."

"I love you, too, Vic," he said as his tired expression gave way to a weary smile. "I'm serious though, not too late."

"I promised Mum I'd be home by ten," she said before turning to leave. "I'll be home by nine fifty-nine. I promise."

"Sounds good."

"I'll see you later," she said, hesitating for just a moment to glance back at him before she exited the living room.

She did a quick mental check to make sure she'd done everything she'd needed to do before leave; upon realizing she had, she quickly Apparated on the spot and found herself moments later right outside of Ted's front door. Out of habit, she hastily straightened her hair and clothes out before taking a quick second to stare at the front of his door.

She knocked once and stepped back. Thirty second passed with no response, so she knocked again. Another thirty seconds passed and still no response. She made a face. Was he not home? She glanced at the door knob and felt inclined to try turning it. Ted never left his door open, but—

It clicked open, and the door pushed itself inwards several inches. She reached out and pushed it open further. "Ted?" she called out from the threshold.

There was no reply.

She let herself walk in further and noticed that the living room was empty, but the sound of running water from the adjoining bedroom clearly signaled that he was home. He was showering. She checked the clock on the wall and saw that she was right on time. Ted was probably rushing to catch up.

With a glance across the room, she walked towards his work bench, where stacks and stacks of parchment, folders, and files covered the entire space. It looked as if he'd spent a fair amount of time behind his desk lately, what with the broken quills, crumbled pieces of paper, discarded butterbeer bottles, and at least seven or eight chocolate frog wrappers lying about. She couldn't help but smile a little as she observed the mess. She'd never known anyone over the age of ten who ate chocolate frogs quite like Ted did. She was convinced he could live off of them—something he didn't exactly deny. He always joked that there was a reason James, Albus, and Lily's wizard card collections were some of the largest ones around.

She sighed and continued to examine the various items on his workbench. Amongst the clutter, taking up a very small corner near the end, were several photos in frames that were propped up against the wall. Victoire had looked at these photos hundreds of times before, but it never stopped her from examining them again and again.

She scanned the first one, where Ted—looking no older than five or six—stood next to a smiling Harry. Beside that photo, a shot of a teenage looking Ted with his arm around his grandmother. Beside that, a photo of her cousins, James, Albus, and Lily—all looking a few years younger— were waving back at her.

Her eyes trailed to the last one; the photo she always found the most interesting. Ted as a baby with his parents—the only photo he had of the three of them together. His mother, with her bright pink hair, was holding Ted, who was easily identifiable by his own turquoise hair. He was only weeks old and sleeping in his mother's arms while his father looked upon him fondly. It was equally one of the sweetest and most heartbreaking things Victoire had ever seen.

The sound of running water abruptly ceased, causing Victoire to briefly glance towards his room before returning to the photo in front of her. She smiled sadly at it as she picked it up, knowing that this was one of the few mementos Ted had to even prove his parents were real. She knew he had hundreds of photos of his mother growing up, thanks in part to his grandmother; he had a handful of photos of his father, thanks to Harry; but he had practically none of his parents together other than the one she was currently holding. In fact, the only other photo Ted claimed to have ever seen of the two of them together was one where they were sitting side by side at some sort of meeting; even then, his mother was being partially obstructed by a vase on a table.

But as Ted had always said, not a lot of happy photos were being taken when you spent most of your time hunting for dark wizards during a war. It was something she knew he didn't overtly dwell on, but deep down he obviously wished he had more than just one photo of his parents to remind him of them. It was only natural.

Ted's bedroom door suddenly opened, and Victoire looked up to find Ted pulling his shirt over his wet head. He smiled the second he noticed her, seemingly unsurprised to see her standing there.

"Hey."

"Hey," she said with a slow smile before Ted walked over to kiss her hello. He smelled like soap and his face still felt damp and soft from the shower, which she liked. As she pulled away, she looked up at him. "You taste like peppermint."

"Well, I did brush my teeth just for you," he joked. "It was that time of the month." He looked down at the photo in her hand. "Are you looking at that again?"

She shrugged. "I really like this photo."

He grinned as he moved beside her to get a better look at the frame. "I do too." He glanced back at the other photos sitting on his work bench. "You know, I don't have any of us. How did that work out?"

"Neither of us own a camera."

"Yeah, but you have something like two hundred photos of us."

"In which we're about seven-years-old," she countered. "I have no recent ones."

"Still…" he said, shrugging and pointing towards his desk. "I need to get one."

Victoire took the moment to hold the photo of his parents up to his face. "So, I've come to realize that you look a lot like both of your parents."

"Oh, really?" he asked, sounding amused. "I usually just get people telling me I remind them of my dad."

She shook her head. "You've definitely got a lot of your dad in you, but," she pointed to the photo, "you've got your mum's smile. And her chin."

He grabbed at his chin as she said, "Yeah?"

She smiled up at him. "Well, I think so."

"That's definitely a new one," he said, clapping his hand together and taking a deep breath. "But, anyway, I'm glad you let yourself in." He turned and walked over to his sofa, where he picked up a lone folder that had been laying there and lobbed it haphazardly towards his desk. "I was sort of afraid you may have just stood there knocking, so I think I just took the quickest shower ever."

She followed him over towards the sofa. "Yeah, the door was open, so I let myself—"

She stopped once she came face to face with the sofa and noticed a bouquet of flowers lying randomly on top of one of the cushions. Had she not been paying attention, she could have easily sat on them, though she assumed he'd put them there so she'd notice them when she did go to sit.

"Those are for you," he said obviously.

An immediate smile found itself plastered across her face as she picked up the bouquet and began examining the purple and yellow flowers within the paper wrapping. There was definitely something truly adorable about knowing that Ted had consciously gone and made the effort to pick these out. It seemed like something that—when they were friends—she would have had to tell him to do. Then again, that had been years ago. It was no secret that he'd done a lot of growing up from the clueless boy he'd been at fifteen.

"Wow," she said impressively, sitting down to examine them further. "I get flowers?"

Ted maneuvered his way around her in order to sit down on her opposite side. "I figured I might as well do something charming. For once."

"It is about time," she teased.

He smiled and slunk lazily onto the sofa. "I'm working on it."

Victoire glanced down at him. "Well, it paid off," she kissed the top of his wet head, "because I think the gesture is quite charming." She pulled the flowers up to smell them. "I just don't know what I'm going to do with them since I can't take them home. Too many questions I would have to answer."

"Yeah, I thought about that after I bought them," he said, glancing up at her. "You can leave them here."

Victoire slowly started to frown at hearing that.

Ted laughed a little. "Don't worry. One day we won't have to have secret flowers. One day," his tone turned playful, "I can get you flowers that the whole world can see."

She forced a small smile, but her mind was too busy thinking about why they hadn't bothered to tell anyone in the first place. She was actually starting to feel bad about it. This decision seemed to make much more sense a month ago.

"I don't even know why we kept this a secret," she mumbled.

"Because you wanted to, and I agreed with you?" he offered.

"I know," she said as she leaned forward to set the flowers down on the table, "but now I'm wondering why I wanted to."

"Because you didn't want your family making a big deal out of things before we even got a chance to spend any time together."

She shot him a look. "I'm being rhetorical, Ted."

"Oh," he said. "Why? Do you feel bad about it?"

"It's just," she suddenly leaned back on the sofa so that she and Ted were shoulder to shoulder, "I felt really bad when I told my dad I was coming over here tonight. I wasn't even lying, but I was lying, you know? He trusts me and I've just been…" She trailed off.

Ted didn't say anything right away, but reached out and gave her leg an encouraging squeeze. "I know, but your parents don't have to find out you've been lying to them."

"How won't they?" she asked. "A month seems doable, but once I'm back at school, somehow it'll get back to them. They'll start putting the pieces together. The last thing either of my parents are is dumb. They're not going to believe we randomly decided to get together while I was away at school."

"So, what's our story?" he asked, glancing at her. "I mean, if anything, I should be the one who's worried. I doubt your parents are going to turn up at school to get at you. They could easily find me."

"You act like they're going to hunt you down."

"Are they?" he asked, only half sounding as though he was kidding. "I've never seen your dad mad, but that doesn't mean I want to. I've seen Ginny mad, and I've seen your grandmother mad, and I've seen your Uncle Ron mad. You Weasleys can be scary when you want to be. That's not even taking into account your mum and her temper."

"It'll be me they're mad at," she said.

Ted sighed. "No, it'll probably be me they're mad at. With you, they'll most likely just be disappointed."

Something inside of Victoire's chest plummeted at hearing that. She hadn't thought about them being disappointed. That seemed worse than them being mad.

"What do we tell people?" she asked.

He shrugged. "If we can hold out until Christmas, then I say we just tell everyone then."

"And if we can't?"

"We can tell them the truth and hope they remember what it was like to be young and in love." He made a funny face. "They're not that old."

Victoire forced a laugh. "They may remember, but it doesn't mean they'll approve of sneaking around."

"We'll just say it happened," he said. "We don't have to say when or where, but that it did. We'll tell them we're serious about things, and we can even tell them that we were afraid of everyone's reactions. We'll be honest, yet ambiguous."

"You really think my parents are going to let me scrape by with being ambiguous?"

He shrugged. "Well, I never had the awkward pleasure of lying to my parents and trying to cover my arse once they found out. So, I'm probably the last person to be giving advice on how to do it."

She groaned.

"Vic," he said seriously. "Things will work out. Your parents aren't going to disown you and the world won't end." He smiled. "And if it does, it'll end for the both of us, so we'll be in this together."

She leaned her head onto his shoulder, though the dread in her chest remained ever present. There was something comforting in hearing him say they were in this together, though. She had to admit that.

"It'll be okay," he added.

"I hope you're right," she said heavily before she sat up straighter once again. "But let's stop talking about this. I've only got until ten tonight and I want to enjoy the last few hours we get together. I certainly don't want to sit here being grumpy."

"You've only got until ten?" Ted asked, his tone more than sounding surprised. "Ten o'clock?"

"Someone's got a train to catch tomorrow," she said, looking up at him. "I didn't tell you the other day that I had to go home by ten?"

He shook his head, his face filled with a mixture of shock and disappointment. "Are you serious? I didn't know we only had until ten."

She learned over and kissed him quickly. "Don't be grumpy. We'll just have to make the best of the time we do have."

He leaned his head back and stared blankly at the ceiling, the disappointment still evident on his face. "I cannot wait until you're on your own."

"I've got at least a year," she said, patting his leg affectionately before she stood from the sofa. "Might as well make the best of what we've been dealt at the moment."

"But seriously. Ten?"

"Would you have preferred them telling me I could stay home tonight?" she asked.

"I would have come over."

She laughed and held her hands up in front of her, as if mimicking a scale. "So, on one hand," she held up her left hand, "we can hang out here for less time, but do whatever we want. On the other hand," she held up her right, "we can hang out at the Maison de Weasley and spend our time pretending we're still just friends." She pretended to weigh both hands equally before letting her left hand dramatically drop.

Ted smiled. "Maison de Weasley?"

"It means—"

"I knew what it meant," he interjected. "My French is useless, but it's not that useless. I just think it's cute you randomly threw it in there."

She stared at him skeptically. "You've always hated, and I mean absolutely detested, when I've randomly started to speak French."

"No," he corrected before he also stood up, "I hate when you intentionally speak French with the purpose of making sure I don't know what you're saying. Otherwise, I actually like when you speak French."

Her expression remained doubtful. "Since when?"

"Since it became sort of sexy," he said, breezing past her on the way to the kitchen.

"Since when?" she repeated, watching him as he set about looking for something inside of his kitchen cupboards.

"I don't know," he smiled a little, "there's something mysterious and sexy about it. I can't explain it."

She gawked at him.

"I know, I know. But it's true."

"I never thought I'd see the day…" she trailed off, sounding amused as she followed him into the kitchen. She didn't say anything further until she pulled herself onto the counter to sit. "I'm going to have to remember that."

"Just use it for good and not evil," he said right before he pulled out a decent sized platter covered with some sort of foil. "Now, the important question is, how are you as a cook?"

"Rubbish."

"Yeah, me too," he said as he stared curiously at the foiled item. "And so is my Grams, for that matter. I told her I wanted to take a crack at making a semi-decent, real meal in order to impress," he smiled at her, "some girl."

She laughed.

"So, she gave me this," he gestured to the covered platter, "and told me to just heat it up."

"What is it?" Victoire asked as she reached out to pick up the foil and peek underneath.

"Chicken, I think," he said, examining it for himself. "Maybe turkey? I can't tell. She said most of the work is done, I just have to heat it up for a certain amount of time."

"How long?"

"Well, that's the thing," he made a face. "I don't remember. I was really tired when she was explaining it to me."

Victoire laughed and hopped off the counter. "Well, I can't cook worth a damn, but I think I'm not too bad at heating things up." She pointed her wand inside the small oven and set a charm to it that immediately lit a fire inside. She glanced back at Ted. "I guess we can just put it in and keep an eye on it?"

He shrugged, looking as if that was as good a plan as any. They placed the chicken-turkey inside of the oven and stepped back; both of them stared at it for a moment, as though expecting something immediate to happen. When nothing out of the ordinary did, they looked at each other.

"And now we wait," Ted said, walking straight out of the kitchen and making a beeline to his bedroom. "And while we wait, you can help me with something."

Victoire dawdled for a moment, still checking the oven for whether or not they were missing something. When she couldn't find anything, she turned and followed him towards his bedroom. Inside, he was already busy searching around in his wardrobe with his head buried somewhere inside of it. She stared at him curiously for a moment, but made her way to sit on the edge of his bed and watch him.

"I already know I'm probably asking for it by suggesting this," Ted said, his tone sounding forced.

"Asking for what?" she asked.

He pulled out three sets of robes and tossed them idly onto the bed beside her. Victoire glanced at each of them before looking back at him. He was staring at her expectantly.

"I have to look especially nice for my presentation tomorrow," he said slowly, as though he was almost dreading what he was about to say. "Those are the nicest things I own."

Victoire gradually started to smile, the realization dawning on her. "Are you actually asking my advice about clothing?"

He begrudged weak a smile. "I know you like this sort of thing, so I thought maybe you could pick out which one I—"

She grinned widely.

"—looked best in."

Without a word, Victoire stood up and immediately went to work separating each robe from the other and placing them on them all neatly on the bed. She could hear Ted trying not to laugh from behind her, but as far as she was concerned, he could laugh all he wanted. He was giving her an opportunity to dress him up and make him look sharp; a chance to have a little fun with his clothes that didn't have frayed edges or date back to when he was sixteen. She didn't know if this opportunity would ever come up again.

"I don't know why you enjoy this so much," he said.

"Clothes are a way of representing who you are," she said as she examined the blue robe he had chosen. "They can say a lot about you."

"Right…"

"I'm serious," she said, handing him the blue robe. "Try this one on. It's best if I can see it on you."

He made a face, though he reluctantly took it from her.

"I need to make an informed decision," she continued as she reached back down and picked up a grey robe. It still had the tags on it. "Have you ever even worn this?"

"I don't dress up very often," he said as he pulled his shirt over his head and started to undo the pants he was wearing. Victoire stopped and blinked for a second, taken slightly by surprise at the fact that he was just stripping off in front of her as casually as he was. She almost felt compelled to look away, since it seemed odd to just stare at him changing…but…she also didn't feel like doing that. She rather enjoyed seeing him standing there half naked; especially since—when she usually had him wearing this little—they were lying down and otherwise preoccupied. This time, she actually had a view. A view that made her mind go a little wild with possibilities. She'd yet to see him fully naked, but as she watched him standing there in his shorts—trying to distinguish the arm holes from the head hole on his robe—she had a sudden urge to do just that.

Ted pulled the robe over his head and fixed it so that it was on straight. He looked up at her for her opinion.

"It matches your hair," she said, looking him up and down.

"My hair would be brown," he said as his hair faded from blue to brown the moment he said it. "It has to be for work."

"Oh," she said obviously, nodding now that she got the full picture "I like it." She smiled. "You look very handsome. Very professional."

"Fantastic," he said dryly, immediately reaching to tug the robe off. "I'll wear this, then. Easy enough."

"Wait," she said as she reached down and grabbed the grey robe. "You have to try this one on, too."

He'd just worked the robe over his head, but stopped and let it fall back down so that only the top half his face was now poking out the hole. "No, I don't."

She laughed. "Oh, come on. Give me my moment, Ted."

Even with only his eyes visible, she could tell he was making a face. Still, without verbal complaint, he begrudgingly took the robe from her and pulled the one he was wearing off and over his head. She had just stood back to once again admire the view and the way the muscles in his arms tensed when he pulled the robe around, when a sudden strange smell invaded her nostrils.

"Do you smell that?" she asked as the smell of something burning became more and more apparent. "Is something bur— oh, crap!"

She immediately brushed past him and back out and into the kitchen, where black smoke was slowly billowing from the oven. Coughing a few times as she inhaled, she opened the oven, pulled out her wand, and immediately muttered "Aguamenti" as the smoke subsided and the hissing sound of fire being extinguished filled the room. Once she could actually see through the cloud that had materialized, a small charred bird sat sitting in the center of the oven. It was jet black.

"Shit…" she heard Ted say from behind her.

"We really are rubbish cooks," she said, glancing back at him. "I mean, all we had to do was heat it up."

Ted blinked a few times, though for whatever reason, Victoire suddenly found all of this rather funny. She started to smile, which quickly gave way to a fit of laughter. Her laughter only provoked Ted to laugh, though trying to laugh in a smoky kitchen proved to provide just as much coughing as it did laughing. She ducked across the room to open the window while Ted had grabbed a folder and was absently fanning smoke towards it.

"So much for dinner," Victoire mumbled after the two had spent the better part of an hour cleaning up and trying to fan the remaining smoke out the window in order to clear the flat.

"We can make sandwiches," Ted offered as he opened Auggie, his owl's, cage in order to let him stretch his wings and get away from the smoke. The snow owl stared at both Ted and Victoire suspiciously before he wasted no time in taking off through the open window.

She shrugged. "Better than nothing."

They set to work making sandwiches, all of which were eaten while both Ted and Victoire stood cramped in the small kitchen inspecting the smoky scene. Victoire sat on the counter and observed as Ted poked around in his oven trying to see if anything was damaged; the overwhelming smell of burnt chicken—or turkey, or whatever it was—and smoke surrounding them.

"Smells like burning," he mumbled as he turned around and faced her, leaning against the opposite counter in the tiny kitchen.

"It shouldn't be damaged," she said once she finished the last of her sandwich. "Your flat's going to smell like this for a few days, though. Have fun with that."

"Yeah, this wasn't part of the plan," he said as he chewed on the edge of his sandwich.

"It's not so bad," she said, smiling. "It's like an event. Dinner and a show."

Ted let out a heavy breath and stared at her with a semi-frustrated look on his face. The last thing she wanted him to be was frustrated right now. They were supposed to be having fun and enjoying their last night together for months, not brooding over a smoky oven.

She reached out from where she sat on the countertop and grabbed the front of his shirt, an easy task considering how tiny the kitchen was. Tugging gently, she pulled him towards her.

"Cheer up," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"I'm fine," he said, forcing a smile.

"Good, because," she kissed him, "I wouldn't want our last two hours together until December spent with you being in a foul mood."

"I'm fine," he repeated, sounding far more sincere this time. He took the moment to rest his hands on the counter, placing both on either side of her. When he looked back at his oven once more, he rolled his eyes.

Victoire grabbed his chin and forced him not to look at it.

"I know. It's just…" he trailed off and stared at her, though his train of thought changed almost instantly once he met her face. You know, I kind of like you sitting right here. You're at the perfect height for me to—" He kissed her. "I don't have to bend down or anything."

She put her hands in his hair and began absently running her fingers through it. "You know where else you don't have to bend down?"

"Hmm?"

She hopped off the counter and gestured towards his room, knowing that she didn't need to say anything more. She was fully aware that he would follow her if she simply ventured that way.

Sure enough, as she entered his room and began attempting to fold his robes up in order to clear some space, she heard the door shut behind her and the room became almost completely dark. He appeared at her side and yanked the robe she was holding from her, tossing it carelessly across the room.

"It's going to wrinkle," she said.

"I couldn't care less," he mumbled, pulling her down onto the bed on top of him.

Victoire laughed. "You'll regret that tomor—"

Ted wasted no time in kissing her, as if he was purposely cutting her off, but his face felt warm and familiar against hers, so she decided not to press it. It was better to just let herself get lost in the moment.

As she got herself more comfortable on top of him, she began to think about how she could easily snog like this for the rest of time. This was always her favorite part, but then again, there were several things she'd yet to experience that could easily be better…or so people led her to believe. That was all in due time, though. Right now, she just relished in the opportunity to push herself against him, press her lips into his, and enjoy the contours of his body. One thing all this kissing had taught her was that Ted was a much better kisser than she would have ever pegged him for back in the day. She suddenly wondered if there was a certain correlation between being a good kisser and being good at other things?

"As nice as this looks on you," Ted said as he fumbled with the hem of her shirt, "which it did, I might add because you look amazing in it, I think we should get rid of it."

Victoire smiled—and silently congratulated herself for her shirt doing exactly as she had intended it to—as it came over her head and found itself absently tossed across the room.

She switched her position when she lay back down and immediately pulled Ted down on top of her, kissing him in an urgent and hurried manner. She wanted to soak in everything about this moment, knowing that this was the last she was going to get for months. The heat between them, the excitement in the way he was kissing her, the anticipation and the uncertainty of wondering where his hands were going to go; not to mention, just the intense tension that always arose when the two of them started going at it. It felt intoxicating, as though she was ready to throw all reservations out the window and simply let her instincts of what felt good take over.

In a haze of fervor and eagerness, several other choice items of clothing began peeling themselves off. She worked him easily out of his shirt and pants, though she made him work a little to get her pants off—just because she enjoyed the determination in his expression when she pretended to make it difficult for him. Before she knew it, between their bouts of intense kissing and flip-flopping of body positioning, both were left in their bare essentials; only a few thin layers of fabric were separating the two from an entire new realm of their relationship. While things seemed almost fast, everything about what was happening felt oddly right. It made her somehow want more. More…

She had a moment of sound clarity as she slowed things down to a calmer pace and began kissing him slowly. What was more? Well, she obviously knew what more entailed, but was it too soon? They'd only been together for a month, but they'd known each other since she was born. This wasn't like a normal relationship where people were still getting to know each other and seeing if they fit. She knew they fit, so did that mean she was ready for sex? Was there supposed to be a sign telling her she was ready? If she was really ready, should she be asking herself all of these questions?

"You okay?" Ted asked in a breathless tone as he pulled himself off of her and positioned himself so he was now lying beside her. Even in the dark, she could tell he was studying her face.

She stared back at him, wondering if she'd been thinking so hard that she's pulled herself out of the moment. "Yeah," she leaned forward to kiss him again, "never better."

The entire idea of sex was huge for her. She didn't want to make a big deal of things, but she couldn't help but overthink it. The furthest she'd gone with a boy before Ted was letting David Thorpe feel her up after they'd been together for two months. Ted had gotten that far on the first day they were together—Ted had gotten worlds further in the days since, but were they rushing things? She knew she wanted him to be her first, but if they had sex in the first month, then what was left to look—?

Her body tensed and she stopped kissing him. She wasn't sure what he had just done, but his hand had moved between her legs and whatever it was, she felt her body reflexively clench. She lay back on the bed and closed her eyes; a small, but gratifying noise escaped her before she even knew what she was doing. Whatever he was doing with his hand, she never wanted him to stop doing it.

"Good to know," Ted said quietly, sounding more as if he was thinking out loud rather than actually talking to her.

When she finally managed to open her eyes, she looked at him and saw that he was watching her, studying her face as he had been the last few times she'd stopped to observe him. She looked away briefly and let her eyes trail to the ceiling as the feeling she was currently experiencing started to make her body shake a little. Through a clenched jaw, she mumbled, "Don't ever stop doing that."

"I won't," he said quietly as she glanced back at him. He was smiling the most perfect and sexy smile that she'd ever seen a person muster. That smile did it. How was she supposed to think rationally when he smiled at her like that? How was she supposed to think rationally after he'd just made her feel like that?

She pulled herself forward and started kissing him again, wrapping her fingers in his hair and pushing her body towards him. He actively responded, pulling himself up and leveling himself so that their bodies were parallel to each other. He pulled her closer, and, with one swift movement, Victoire suddenly felt his erection resting against her leg. She swallowed hard, knowing now that her mind was now going to think of little else other than the hard feeling that was now pressing against her thigh.

With a tentative movement towards the waist, she let her hand trail the length of his side and rested it where she met the waistband of his shorts. She let it pause there for a moment, curious as to what exactly she should do next. Instinct was telling her to edge her way along his waistband, so she slowly began to do just that. The nearer she got towards the front, the slower Ted suddenly started to kiss her. It seemed he was anticipating the next move just as much as she was.

He shifted himself away slightly to allow space between and to give her room. It was as if he was creating an opening for her, which only made her realize that he wanted her to do something as much as she wanted to do something. She just had to actually do it…

She pulled away from his lips and glanced down—though she couldn't see anything in the dark—she blindly reached down under his shorts and grabbed at where his penis ought to be. Of course, it wasn't exactly hard to find, and as she wrapped her fingers around it, she silently rejoiced that she'd actually gone through with it. She rejoiced even more when Ted made no point of hiding a happy groan, which—in knowing she caused—gave her even more courage to keep going. Now she just had to work out what to do next since simply holding his penis wasn't really going to achieve much.

"Hey, Ted?" she whispered.

"Hmmm?" he asked, his eyes closed.

She slowly leaned in to kiss him. "I love you."

"I love you," he said as he cracked his eyes open to look at her. "You also have no idea how much I'm going to miss you."

"I think I have a pretty good idea," she said as she went back to concentrating on where her hand was currently resting. She began to absently run her fingers up and down, realizing that she needed to get him out of these shorts since the waistband was cutting into her arm. She slowly tugged at them, but stopped when she heard a knocking sound from somewhere nearby.

She glanced at Ted, who looked as if he'd heard it too, but he only let his eyes flutter open for a second before deciding to dismiss it.

She decided to ignore it as well, returning to the task in front of her and wondering what exactly she could do to make him feel as good as she had made him feel only moments before. She felt sexy and strangely powerful knowing she could make him—

The sound of knocking returned, only this time louder.

"What the hell…?" Ted mumbled under his breath, but still made no attempt to move. Victoire glanced at him curiously, but he just shook his head and leaned forward to kiss her. "Ignore it."

As she kissed him back, she let her grip tighten around his shaft and could feel Ted respond positively. He let himself groan again and went immediately to the waistband of his shorts to pull them off himself. He hadn't even managed to pull them a few centimeters when the sound of knocking turned into a now loud pounding.

They both pulled away from each other, Ted's eyes immediately darting towards his bedroom door. It was hard to see a lot in the dark, but Victoire knew there was no mistaking the look of aggravation and annoyance on Ted's face right now. The pounding repeated itself for a second time, and Ted immediately exhaled an overly loud, frustrated sigh.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," he said, pulling himself off the bed to search around the room for his pants. Once he found them, the sound of him hastily pulling them on and mumbling something indistinguishable under his breath was all Victoire could hear.

He pulled open his bedroom door and let the light from the living room spill into the bedroom, just as the pounding repeated itself for a third time. Victoire could just make out his silhouette as he reached into his pocket for his wand. He turned back to her.

"Please, stay just like that," he said, sounding a little like he was pleading. "I'll be right back." He grabbed at the doorknob. "Right after I kill whoever is pounding on my door."

She smiled a little as he shut the door behind him. The room immediately went pitch black again as Victoire pulled the sheet up around her to keep warm. She couldn't help but wonder if this was supposed to be the sign she'd been requesting earlier that maybe she should be waiting.

If it was, she really, really wanted to ignore it.


	2. CH. 37: M: Getting Peace

Later that night, Victoire lay wide awake in her bed. She had been watching as the small traces of moonlight that had filed through her window bounced off the walls and reflected upon various sources around the room, though she was sure how long she'd been doing this. She glanced back at her clock and noticed it had been a half an hour since she'd last checked the time. It had only seemed like minutes, but just like that, thirty minutes had passed without warning.

She groaned frustratingly. Why couldn't she get her mind to settle? It was as if a hundred different thoughts were charging through her, all of which were fighting for her sole focus. At this rate, she would never get to sleep, but she simply couldn't shake the feeling in the pit of her gut that was making her worry about Ted. The same two questions continued to pester her—had he gotten home and was he okay? If only there was a way she could tell, then she might finally get some peace, but since she couldn't…

Why did she have to be such a worrier?

She shook her head and forced her eyes shut. He was fine. Why wouldn't he be fine? She needed to go to sleep. The faster she fell asleep, the sooner morning would be here and the sooner she could go and see him. That's all there was to it. She just needed to go to sleep and stop thinking about him.

Her eyes hadn't been shut for thirty second before they were back open again.

This wasn't going to work. Something needed to change. She flipped over onto her stomach and let her gaze scan the rest of her room. Whit had nodded off already, the sound of her tranquil breathing was one of only two noises Victoire could hear—the other being the wind outside as it rattled the tree branches around. Everything else was otherwise silent.

Out of boredom and lack of anything else to do, she started focusing on the objects around her room; studying them intently, as if she'd never seen them before. First was the clown figurine that sat atop her dresser chest. Her grandfather had given it to her when she was four to commemorate her first visit to France, but staring at it now in the dark, she noticed it gave off a particularly creepy vibe. Something about its smile was unsettling.

She immediately switched her focus to the picture frames that hung on the wall opposite of her bed, but in the dark she could just barely make out the images within the frames. Not that she had to see them, considering she had them all memorized after having looked at them all hundreds of times in the past. She closed her eyes and tried to visualize each one. The first was a photo of her and her parents before she'd left for Hogwarts for her first year. The second was a picture of her and Whit that she had taken earlier in the year at school. The next was of she of her siblings in a café in Paris from over the summer, followed by one of her favorite pictures of her and Ted when they were kids playing out in the garden of her grandparents' house—

She opened her eyes. Well, that hadn't helped one bit in forgetting about Ted.

Right then, it became clear to her then that she was never going to sleep tonight; she was just going to lay here until day break, watching the clock tick down the minutes until morning came. It was all she could do.

She should have said something to her mother after Ted had Apparated away. If she had just explained things to her, she may have understood and let her go over there to make sure, but it was far too late now. Neither of her parents would take kindly to her waking them up at—she checked the clock—2:43 in the morning on a worried hunch that she was most likely overreacting to in the first place.

She sat up in bed and glanced out the window. It was instances like this that made her wish she could speed up the aging process and just grow up already. If it had been her nineteenth birthday, she wouldn't have to be lying here wondering "what if?" She'd be out of school, out on her own, and capable of doing whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. She could stay out all night if she so pleased and could definitely go and see her boyfriend whenever she damn well felt like.

On that thought, her eyes shifted from the window to her desk, where she immediately settled on Ted's key lying right where she had left it earlier. With a small smirk, she reached forward and picked it up to examine it with what little moonlight was pouring through the window. She was old enough to have someone trust her with a key to their flat, but she wasn't old enough to use it between certain set hours of the day; all because she had to abide by her parents rules.

Stupid rules.

With a quick turn, she flipped the key over and over again in hand. The longer the watched it, the more that an oddly rebellious thought began to poke at her from the depth of somewhere inside her. It was the kind of thought she wasn't even aware she was capable of having until it struck her just now.

Yet, there it was formulating in her mind—something was telling her to just go and see for herself how Ted was doing at this very minute. She wasn't going to sleep anyway, and her parents were both well asleep by now. Everyone was asleep by now, so they would have no way of knowing if she just so happened to…

No, that was stupid. She couldn't sneak out. What was she thinking? If she got caught…

Her eyes went wide at the very thought of being caught. She didn't even want to imagine the repercussions of what would happen if she were caught sneaking out in the middle of the night to go and see her boyfriend. Her parents would never let her hear the end of that! She could already envision the yelling and the scolding, not to mention that she'd be confined to her room until she moved away for good.

But…then again, that wasn't that far off, now was it? There were only a few more days left of Christmas holiday to punish her for, and then her parents would have to let her go back to school. She'd probably have to spend Easter holidays locked away, but she could always sign up to stay at Hogwarts during those if necessary. After that, she'd be done with school for good and ready to move out on her own anyway. Her parents would barely have any time to dole out any real punishment if—

Wait. Was she really sitting here thinking like this? Was she really trying to convince herself to go against her better judgment and do something stupid like sneak out in the middle of the night? Was she actually attempting to rationalize her punishment to make it seem less terrible if she did so happen to get caught? Where was all of this coming from?

No. She couldn't sneak out. She just couldn't. After all, how would she even do it? Just get up and walk out the front door?

She considered that for a moment.

No, she'd have to use the kitchen door because it made less noise. No one would hear her if she used the kitchen door. If she did that, she'd really only have slipped outside and then Apparate and…

Could it really be that easy?

She ran the plan over again in her head, attempting to search for flaws in which something could go wrong. It seemed so doable and easy. It seemed to make so much sense. Was this…?

Before she even knew what she was doing, with Ted's key clutched in her hand, she pulled her blankets off and placed her feet softly onto the ground. The floor creaked slightly, but one glance at Whit told her than it hadn't been enough to disturb her. Granted, Whit was the least of her worries at the moment, but she didn't want to chance anything.

With soft steps across the room towards her closet, Victoire realized she couldn't even get to her closet to change her clothes without somehow knocking into Whit's bed. There was no way around it. It seemed that if she was going to do this, she'd have to make due in her pajamas. Of course, once she remembered how cold it had been earlier, that wasn't exactly a comforting thought.

She grabbed her bathrobe off the back of her bedroom door and pulled it around her before slowly, almost barely, cracking the door open. When it made no noise, she tried to open it a little more, but the hinges didn't bother to creak until after she'd made just enough space for her to sneak through. She glanced back once more to check Whit, though quickly set her sights onto the dark hallway in front of her. She had to make sure everyone had gone to sleep before she could do anything further, and quickly noticed that no lights shined from underneath anyone's bedroom doors. As she stepped further into the hallway to shut her bedroom door behind her, she glanced over the upstairs railing and down onto the foyer below. No lights shined from any of the adjoining rooms; the kitchen was dark and quiet, as was the living room.

With a deep breath that she held, as if that would somehow make her lighter when descending the stairs, she slowly made her way down towards the kitchen. She purposely skipped the fourth stair from the bottom—knowing that it had a tendency to creak loudly—and once on the ground floor, she glanced back up triumphantly. She made it this far.

With a quick dash towards the front door, she grabbed her cloak and pulled it around her as she made her way through the kitchen, around the dinner table, and over to where the side door was. Before she turned the lock, she quickly checked over her shoulder to make absolutely positive no one was standing there in the dark watching her. When no one was, she pulled the door open and stepped back out into the icy air for the second time that night.

Out on the side porch, she could hear her heart thumping in her ears as she made her way back around the side of the house. She wanted to Apparate as far away as possible from her parents' window for fear of them somehow hearing the tiny pop she would make upon Apparating away. She'd gotten this far already, she wasn't taking any chances.

As she reached the other side of the house, where the spot she and Ted had talked just hours before lay yards away, she double checked to make sure she still had Ted's key. She pocketed it into her cloak before throwing one last look back at her house to make sure no lights had come on. If she did get caught, she knew this was possibly the last few moments of freedom she would have for the next few months; she felt somewhat inclined to savor it. She could only hope that her house was this peaceful when she returned.

She Apparated on the spot, the pulling sensation whipping her aggressively against the cold, though only lasting for a moment. Before she had time to blink, she was already standing in the corridor outside of Ted's flat; his door just yards away. She stared at it for a long moment, realizing that she hadn't quite thought this far ahead yet. She had been so absorbed with sneaking out that what she was supposed to do when she got her had slipped her mind. Should she knock? Just because she had the key, it didn't mean she should just let herself in…did it? She'd hate to fail her very first test as a key holder by just barging in as if she owned the place. Especially at three o'clock in the morning.

Still, Ted told her to let herself in the morning, and he hadn't seemed too concerned with it then. Plus, he was probably—hopefully—asleep. The last she wanted to do was wake him up and force him out of bed when he should be resting.

Right, she thought, pulling the key out of her pocket. She was going to use the key. That's what it was there for. With her pulse racing, she walked over to the door and placed the key into the keyhole, where it was actually a surprise to her to see it turn and click itself open. She wasn't sure why, but she had almost expected that not to happen.

She gently tapped the door open and found herself facing nothing but darkness in front of her. As she entered and shut the door behind her, she held her breath again for reasons she wasn't even sure of. Without a light, she couldn't make out any of the familiar references Ted had in his flat. She knew the kitchen was to the right, and if she walked in further, she would run the sofa if she wasn't careful. Ted's bedroom would be to the left, though she couldn't tell where the door was from where she was standing.

She drew her wand and whispered, "Lumos" before watching her wand light spill across the floor and illuminate everything in its path. Now she could make out everything in detail, though she stopped when a sudden thought occurred to her.

Here she was unannounced and fumbling around in the dark at three o'clock in the morning. If Ted was here, what was stopping him from thinking she was a prowler and hexing her on the spot?

Immediately, she shined her wand light onto the kitchen and walked over to where she knew she would find a light. With a quick click, the room grew bright and Victoire extinguished her wand's beam. It was then that she noticed Ted's bedroom door was open and that the light from the kitchen was now casting itself inside of it. If she just took a few steps forward, she'd be able to peer inside and have all the answers she'd been asking herself for the better part of the last few hours…

She took a deep breath and walked forward, peering slowly into his room.

Sure enough, lying shirtless on the bed with the sheet wrapped half around him in a confining sort of way, Ted lay asleep on his stomach. He'd made it home okay, and given the sound of his heavy breathing, he seemed to be fine. She smiled as she watched him, though she couldn't help but feel rather stupid having worried so much. Of course he was fine. Why wouldn't he be fine?

In that moment, Ted's hair flashed from brown, to blue, to a turquoise-ish color, which distracted her from her thoughts. She hadn't seen it do that since they were kids and she'd stumbled upon him napping a time or two. All she knew was that it had something to do with his dreams, but it had always fascinated her to watch it change so quickly and without warning.

She looked away and took a step back, already knowing that she should probably go. If he was asleep, she didn't want to wake him. He needed his rest and he looked comfortable. She'd gotten her answer and could now finally get some sleep of her own. If she left now, she'd have barely been gone.

Ted's hair flashed to blue again as he turned in his sleep onto his back. In the process, his left arm hung itself dully over the edge of the bed; his injury from earlier now completely visible. Seeing it so clearly made Victoire glance away from the bed and down to the floor, where a pile of robes sat as if they'd been hastily discarded. It only took a second for her eyes to adjust well enough to notice the bloody sleeve.

Something inside of her knew she should let him sleep—she did know that. But she couldn't help thinking that she should say something. It seemed rather strange to just sneak in and sneak out with no word. After all, what would Ted say if she told him she had stopped by to check on him, but not bothered to actually wake him?

As soon as she had asked herself the question, the sound of Ted's voice in her head—clear as day—answered, "Why didn't you just wake me?"

She stared at him a moment longer, but with a resigned sigh, she took a quick step forward towards his bed and reached out to gently shake his shoulder.

"Ted," she whispered.

He stirred for a brief second before suddenly turning over with a start, as if quickly realizing that someone was speaking to him when there shouldn't have been anyone there.

"Hey, it's me," she said immediately. "Victoire." She took out her wand and cast a lighting spell, knowing right away that the unexpected bright light on her face would probably startle him more than he already was. She wanted to prove it was her, though—in case he still wasn't sure. There was always a chance he had his wand nearby and the last thing she needed was to get hexed on accident.

On his back, Ted squinted away from the light before he sluggishly pulled himself onto his elbows. "Vic?"

She forced an awkward smile. "Hi."

He pulled himself further into a sitting position, causing the blanket he had pulled around him to fall lazily to his lap. "Hi. What time is it?"

"Sometime after three, I think." She used her wand light to search the room for a clock to double check. When she found one, the time read 3:02.

"Oh, is that all?"

She pointed her wand light back at herself. "I know this is really weird, me just turning up like this, but after seeing you earlier, I was just…worried. I wanted to make sure you got home okay."

He started to rub his eyes, but laughed a little. "That's sweet."

"I just let myself in with the key," she said, pointing behind her towards the living room. "I wasn't going to wake you, but I sort of thought it would be strange if I came in and didn't say anything."

Ted lowered his hand from his face and looked up at her with the same tired eyes as earlier in the evening, though there was something behind them now that hadn't been there hours before. He looked much more coherent now, like the Ted she was used to seeing. "I'm glad you did."

"Yeah," she nodded, feeling strangely stupid in this entire situation. "I figured you would have wanted me to." She looked away, wanting to change the subject to something other than her randomly showing up in the middle of the night like a weirdo. "How are you feeling?"

He shrugged a little. "A lot better than earlier. My hand still hurts a little," he picked his hand up and squinted at it in the dark, "but that's about it."

"You look better," she said as she studied his face. He was certainly less pale now, and while he still looked tired, he didn't look like death. He just looked groggy—like someone had woken him up in the middle of the night.

"Did I look that bad?" he asked.

"Let's just say you looked bad enough for me to feel the need to come visit you in the middle of the night."

Ted yawned and vigorously began to rub his face. "Yeah, how'd you pull that off? Getting out of the house, I mean."

"I snuck out."

He stopped rubbing his face and lowered his hands. "Really?"

"How else could I?"

"I don't know." He laughed and pulled himself up further in order to reach out and part the curtains above his bed, letting the moonlight filter in and add some extra light to the room. "Maybe you told your parents I was in bad shape and they let you come and check on me. I would have believed that before I would have believed you snuck out."

She shrugged and smiled a little.

"You can put out the light," he said, pointing to her wand. "It's killing my eyes."

"Oops." She extinguished the light before pocketing her wand in her cloak. "Sorry."

"It's okay," he said, yawning again. "So, your parents don't know you're here?"

She shook her head.

"No one's expecting you back anytime soon?"

"No one knows I'm gone, but if they wake up and see I'm not there…" She made an obvious face.

Ted slowly began to smile. "What I'm getting at is that you don't have to rush back, then? I mean, you're out already."

"Oh," she said, realizing exactly where he was going with this. "No, I mean, I'd have to get back before people start waking up or else this is probably the last you'll see of me until I've graduated, but," she grinned, "I've got some time."

"Well, in that case…" He made an obvious gesture of shifting himself over to create space on the bed. "Why don't you stay awhile?"

She smiled. "Stay awhile, huh?"

"Stay as long as you like," he said before he flipped over to his stomach and pulled a pillow underneath his head. "Stay forever."

She glanced around the room before reaching down to undo her cloak, though she hesitated briefly. "If I stay, you can't let me fall asleep. I'm serious about that."

He hummed. "Got it. Don't fall asleep."

"Because if you think I'm kidding about that whole not seeing me until graduation thing…" She threw her cloak over the back of a nearby chair.

"No, I know you're not," he said as he lazily watched her untie the waist tie of her bathrobe. "How many layers of clothes are you wearing?"

"Have you forgotten how cold it is outside?" she asked, tossing her bathrobe the way of her cloak and over the back of the chair.

"I've forgotten most of the night, to be honest," he mumbled. "That's probably a good thing."

"Hopefully you haven't forgotten what happened to your hand so you can tell me what happened," she said as she sat down on the bed and pulled herself under the covers to keep warm. Only seconds after she'd settled herself, Ted had reached over and pulled her closer, burying his face into the side of her arm.

"You don't want to hear about that," he said, his voice muffled from underneath her.

She adjusted herself so she was lying on her side, now face to face with him on the pillow. "Yes, I do."

Ted made a face, and with one eye open and the other closed, he sighed. "I was out at the Dragon's Breath with Simon and all of them and we were having a good time. I was drunk, and I ran into Durrin—"

"Durrin? Durrin Adams?"

"Yeah."

"How do you know him?"

"I work with him."

"Since when?"

"Since this summer. I've told you this before."

"No, you haven't."

"Yes, I have."

"No." She laughed. "First Elizabeth, now Durrin. You never mention any of these people—"

Ted cocked his eyebrow.

"Okay, never mind. Keep going."

"Anyway," Ted continued as he absently began running his hand up and down her back. "Simon and everyone else went on to the next pub, but I had to finish my pint, so I stayed behind. I'm standing there talking to Durrin and—oh yeah, Stuart Reynolds was there, too."

Victoire's jaw dropped. "Uhhh. Where'd he come from?"

"He and Durrin are mates, I guess," Ted said, reaching up to scratch his nose before returning his hand to her back. "I just thought that was random. Anyway, so I'm talking to them and then these idiots next to me start fighting with some goblins for some stupid reason. Spells start flying everywhere, I get stunned—"

Victoire gaped.

"And the next thing I know, I wake up in the hospital, my hand's all messed up, and I feel like shit. I hear that when I feel, I landed on a pile of glass, hence my hand."

"How'd you get to the hospital if you were stunned?"

"Durrin," he said, his eyes fluttering shut. "He was looking out for me. I owe him one."

"Jeez, Ted…" she whispered.

"And that's it," he said, opening his eyes to look down at his injured hand. "I guess I cut an artery or something." He looked at her and forced a little smile. "I could have died."

She pushed him away. "That's not funny."

"It's true," he said with a laugh. "I mean, it would have taken about ten hours or something, but it was possible."

"I'm glad potentially dying is funny to you," Victoire said, making a face before she rolled away from him and onto her back. "You know if something actually terrible would have happened to you, and one of the last things I'd ever said was that I didn't want to see you, I would have never gotten over that."

Ted was silent for a long moment. Victoire actually started to believe that he may have fallen asleep until he finally asked, "Did you mean that?"

"Mean what?"

"That you didn't want to see me today?"

She turned and looked at him.

"Because I seriously drove myself mad all day trying to figure out whether I should come over or whether I should give you space. I even went and talked to Harry about it, and I'll be honest, had I not had such a shitty night I probably wouldn't have."

She sighed and turned back onto her side to face him. "Even if I wanted to believe I meant it when I was mad at you, I won't even lie and say I wasn't really happy when you did turn up. I started to realize how stupid everything seemed and..." She stopped. "Don't get me wrong, I was also really annoyed because I thought you were drunk, but when I saw you, I didn't even want to fight anymore. I just wanted to put everything behind us and for things to be like this," she scooted closer to him, "again."

"I much prefer this over that," he said, wrapping both arms around her.

"That makes two of us." She let her forehead rest against his collarbone as she moved in closer.

And there it was. Right here, lying against him as she was, this felt like a perfect fit. It was so happy and warm here that she really could not understand how it was possible that she could ever be mad at him. There was always such a safe and secure feeling about being wrapped up in Ted that his arms felt like they belonged permanently in this curled position around her body.

She let the quiet, peacefulness of the moment soak for several minutes until Ted's breathing began to grow steadier. He sounded as if he was drifting off.

Victoire picked up her head to look up at him. "Are you asleep?"

He shook his head, but kept his eyes shut. "I'm just really comfortable."

"And comfortable will lead to falling asleep in about thirty seconds."

"I'm trying not to," he said in a drowsy tone, his eyes still closed.

"If you fall asleep, I have to leave," she said, still watching his face. "I can't risk falling asleep."

Ted forced his eyes open and blinked a few times. He abruptly pulled his arms back from around her and flipped himself over onto his back, where he pulled himself into a sitting position and let his head now lean against the wall. "I'm awake."

Victoire flipped over onto her back as well and looked up at him from upside down on the pillow. "You know, you can go to sleep. You've had a rough night. Don't let me stop you."

"I feel fine," he said, glancing down at her. "Sleepy, but fine. Plus, I can sleep anytime. Getting you over here is a different story. I think this is the most alone time we've gotten since you got home." He laughed a little. "Finally, more than five minutes."

"Maybe this sneaking out thing should be a new habit," she said, still looking up at him upside down.

He grinned and reached down to absently stroke her hair. "Just don't go getting yourself caught. I'd rather have the five minutes at a time than none at all."

Victoire smiled at that, though she closed her eyes and let the feeling of his fingers running through her hair settle with her. She had only ever allowed a very small number of people do this throughout the course of her life, but Ted was the only one who made it all feel so uncomplicatedly good. If he kept this up, she was going to fall asleep.

"Don't fall asleep," he joked.

She continued to smile before opening her eyes. "I can't help it."

Ted slid back down into a lying position, where he held out his arm and silently gestured for her to come closer. She did just that, sliding into the space between his chest and his arm and letting her head comfortable rest itself right below his shoulder.

"You know what will be nice?" she said.

"Hmm?"

"The day that I can actually just fall asleep right here, right now, and not have to worry about getting in trouble because I shouldn't be here in the first place."

Ted made a noise of agreement before adding, "I think about that a lot."

She let her hand rest on her chest and looked up at him. "Yeah?"

He nodded before again letting his hand absently stroke at her hair. "It'll just be nice when I can fall asleep and wake up next to you." He suddenly picked up the blankets and looked underneath them. "Hell, this is the first time I've even seen what your pajamas look like." He looked back up at her. "Well, that is, since you gave up wearing the ones with feet built in."

Victoire laughed, though she could distinctly remember exactly what he was talking about. A pair of red and blue striped pajamas from when she had been smaller that did happen to have had the feet built into them. She'd only ever worn them in the winter time, but she had great memories of how warm they had made her feel. They were one of those things that she couldn't see herself ever forgetting; Ted too, it seemed.

"I can't believe you remember those," she said.

"Don't ask me how I do," he said. "But I do. "Don't get me wrong, you were cute in them, but," he laughed, "I'm glad you've put them behind you."

"Oh, don't act like you didn't have some terrible little choices from your past, Victoire said, pulling her head and resting her chin on his chest to look directly at him. "Remember that one summer—you couldn't have been older than six or seven—and you wore that tattered, stupid, black tie around with you? You just wore it over everything."

Ted hummed, sounding as if he did remember.

"I still remember when you got upset because you thought you lost it, but really your grandmother had just taken it to be cleaned since it was so dirty." She laughed a little. "You were obsessed with that thing."

"Only because it belonged to my dad," he said in a distant, sleepy voice. "I was sort of attached to it for a while there. I still have it somewhere in a drawer at my Grams' house."

Victoire continued to stare at him, surprised that she had never known that about him. "I never knew that."

He shrugged. "Yeah, my Grams found it one day amongst a lot of my mum's old stuff, so I took it and started wearing it just to pretend. After a while it turned into a security blanket or something. I just kept wearing it." He began stroking her hair again. "This was also during the time I was having these recurring dreams about my parents almost every night, so I think wearing that thing somehow helped make those feel more real." He suddenly made a funny face. "You know, I had more issues as a kid than I let on."

"I never knew you had recurring dreams about your parents either," Victoire said, returning her head to his shoulder.

"For about two years, all the time," he mumbled. "They were always really vivid dreams, too. I could hear their voices—or what I imagined were their voices— and I could see their faces. Only my Grams and Harry ever knew about them because I woke up crying a few times, but they were the only ones I ever told—until now." He kissed the top of her head. "Here I am telling you all my secrets."

She looked up at him again, but lacked the ability to not smile at that comment. "I feel like you know most of my secrets. Discretion isn't something I've ever been good at."

He laughed at that. "That's true."

"Well, okay, maybe not," she said, pulling herself up to sit on her knees and face him where he lay. "How about this—I had a crush on you when I was younger."

"Yeah, everyone knew that."

"They did?" she asked, though she had a feeling that he was probably right. She had never been a subtle child.

"I was the densest kid you could have met when it came to girls and," he smiled, "even I knew that."

She twisted her face into mock frustration. "Okay. Well…" She looked away and up towards where the curtains were parted and letting light trickle in. "Give me a second. I'll think of something else."

"It's not a big deal," he said, reaching out to grab the front of her shirt and tug it. "Lay back down."

"Not until I think of something," she said matter-of-factly. She suddenly reached down to pull at the blanket he was using; with one quick tug, she pulled it off of him and wrapped it instead around herself to keep warm.

Ted's watched her, his face now begging the question, 'What that was about?', but he said nothing as he lay there staring up at her— his head cocked lazily to the side and a funny smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"This isn't fair," Victoire said after she'd wrapped herself so tightly with the blanket that her head just barely poked out from the top. "You know all of my secrets."

"So, because of that, you feel it necessary to steal my blanket?"

She laughed and let the blanket fall back down to the bed. "Seems that way, doesn't it?"

Ted rolled his eyes and barely smiled, but there was a playfulness in his expression that caused Victoire to have a surge of willingness suddenly course through her. In that moment, she couldn't help but feel more than normally attracted to him because of the way he was just lying there, half-dressed, and smiling at her as if they were the only two people in the world in on some very special secret. There was something enticingly intimate about everything occurring right then. It was almost as if the sign she'd asked for a hundred times in the past was now staring right back at her through Ted's eyes. She knew what she could do with this moment—what she wanted to do—but she just needed to act on it.

Ted suddenly reached out and grabbed her by the wrists, pulling her down on top of him. "You sure do have a lot of energy for three-something in the morning."

"Is that a bad thing?" she asked, her chin now resting on his chest again as she found her face just centimeters away from his.

He smiled very particularly. "I guess that all depends on what we're doing."

"What's all this 'we're' business?" she teased, throwing him a suggestive smile. "I thought you were sleepy?"

He quickly shook his head. "Wide awake."

She continued to smile, feeling rather amused by his reaction and now curious as to how far she could push him. "Yes, but, you've had a really rough night. You should be relaxing." She purposely rose at that moment and twisted over him so that her legs were on either side of his hips.

"This is relaxing," he said, wasting no time in sitting up and pulling her flat onto his lap. If she had had any doubts about going any further with this before, they were all washed away the second she felt his erection pressed up against her leg. Knowing she had caused that only fed her desire to push on.

"Is it?" she asked, leaning in to kiss his lips. She let her fingers slowly run through the back of his hair for a moment before pulling away and taking a calculated route along his jawline and down to his neck. "What I was hoping we could do isn't exactly relaxing."

"Oh, yeah?" he asked, his body reflexively tensing as she felt his hands grip her hips. "And what's that?"

Victoire stopped kissing his neck to look at him. "You just want me to say it."

He made a breathy noise that sounded halfway between a hum and a laugh. "You're damn right I do."

She smiled and leaned in once more to kiss him, but paused just before their lips met. "How about I just show you?"

She kissed him again, and this time he kissed her back with an extra added sense of energy about him. There was something about sitting there on his lap—her mouth on his, her hands still in his hair—that gave Victoire an immense sense of control. She felt completely in control. Kissing was something she'd been doing for years now; something she assumed she was fairly well versed in the mechanics of. She knew when to open her mouth more and when to close it; she knew when to use her tongue a little and when to use it a lot. She was used to the various textures and the interchanging feeling of wet and dry parts of the mouth…These were all things she felt in control of.

It was this control that she felt the need to take advantage of at the moment considering there were only a few more bases to cover until she would have to relent to Ted to take over the situation. Soon enough, she wouldn't have a clue what she was doing next.

In part, she knew most of it would be instinctive. You put it in there and work out the details as you went, but as she continued to sit there kissing him, she had to wonder how much of it was instinctual and how much of it was learned. She didn't want to look stupid…

Ted's hands rose from her hips and went under her shirt, where they grazed her abdomen for just a moment before he reached back down and pulled up at the hem of her shirt. She raised her arms in the air so he could tug it over his head, but continued to kiss him as he tossed it off somewhere into the darkness. He pulled her down onto the bed with him.

"No bra, huh?" he asked a little breathlessly

"I'm in my pajamas."

"Oh, I'm not complaining," he muttered in between kissing her, his hand already grabbing at her left breast. "It makes things so much easier."

Victoire laughed a little, but immediately forgot why she was laughing in the first place as Ted ran his hand over her chest. There was something about him touching her there that sent her mind into complete overdrive. Everything suddenly felt a thousand times more sensitive and everywhere his hand went made her immediately want more. Though, she didn't want to say that quite yet because the faster they went, the quicker it would be over. This felt too good to end.

She tried to draw this moment out for as long as possible, interchanging between kissing his mouth, his neck, his shoulders, his chest, then running her hands around his torso and back up through his hair. She had laid back and let him do the same to her for what seemed like several amazing hours, but was probably more like a handful of minutes. It hadn't been until she reached down—almost without realizing she was doing it—to grab at the waistband of his pants that she suddenly sensed the dynamic start to shift. It was at this point that Ted shifted her off him and went to his pants, where with one quick gesture he pulled them down around his ankles and tossed them off into the darkness.

"Those were just going to get in the way," he said with an adorable little smile across his face. It almost seemed out of place considering how sexually charged he'd been just seconds before.

Victoire laughed as she watched him hold up one finger, as if signaling for a minute, before he climbed over her and out of the bed. Standing there, very naked and very erect, he looked like he was looking for something on the floor.

She took the moment to admire the view, silently wondering if she could have ever predicted the two of them would have come this far. Ted, the same person who remembered her in footie pajamas over a decade ago, was now the same person she wished would hurry up looking for whatever it was he was searching for in the dark and get back over on top of her.

"What are you looking for?" she whispered.

He didn't answer her, but instead was now searching through his blood stained robes. "There we go." He turned around with his wand now in his hand. "Found it."

"Oh," Victoire said, immediately realizing why he'd gone to fetch that; the entire weight behind what that wand meant hit her instantly. This was really going to happen.

Ted placed the wand on the bedside table and climbed back in beside her. There was a quiet sense of calm about him as he lay on his side, bent his arm at the elbow, and propped his head up on his hand. He smiled as he looked at her. "You look incredible right now."

She felt a little self conscious all of a sudden, but still smiled as she laid there fiddling with the sheet between her fingers. Her mind was so busy focusing on what was about to happen, that she really didn't know what to say.

"Seriously," Ted said, reaching up to push a piece of stray hair out of her face. "Do you know how lucky I am?"

She swallowed and smiled again.

"Because I am," he said, watching her face and glancing between her eyes and the part of her forehead where his hand still rested after moving that stray hair.

"Same," she said, just barely finding her voice. "I feel the same way."

Ted smiled and reached out to run his hand along her stomach. "Are you okay?"

She nodded, but exhaled slowly.

"Just so you know, I'm not expecting anything, so if you don't—"

For some reason, the noble nature of his comment brought a weird sense of calm over her, which in turn made her burst out laughing. Just like that, the laughter felt like a release, as if all of her nerves were escaping her through this very action. The more she laughed the more at ease she felt.

Ted furrowed his brow. "What's so funny?"

She smiled at him and reached out to touch his face. "If you're not expecting anything, then why did you go get your wand off the floor?"

He looked puzzled for a second before an expression that said, "Well, shit…" crossed his face. "I…" He slowly grinned. "All right, you got me, but was just planning ahead just in case. It's not like I'll be upset if we don't—"

She continued to smile at him; if it were possible, she fell in love all over again in that precise moment. She pulled his face towards hers and kissed him, her nerves swept away into the sea of doubt that was slowly drying up in her mind. One thing was for complete certain—she had only ever been hesitant of the act of sex itself, never the Ted. She had never been more certain that Ted was the guy who was supposed to be beside her right now.

She stopped kissing him for a moment and settled her hands on the waist of her own pants. It was the last bit of control she knew she had before entering into unknown territory, and she was going to take advantage of it. Just like Ted had done with his, she pulled her pants down around her ankles and tossed them aside.

She settled herself flat against the mattress, where Ted had already begun running his hand back and forth across her stomach and then down across her hip bones. It was as if he was tracing some invisible pattern across her abdomen. She let her head fall dully back against the pillow, she closed her eyes to simply enjoy the moment.

He kissed her stomach and let his hand trail up her torso, where he grazed her breasts a few times and gently let his hand trail down her side. He went up and down a few times, and as he did, he kissed his way up her stomach, over her rib cages, across her neck and stopped just before her mouth. She opened her eyes to look at him, feeling the weight of his hand now halted right above her belly button, but he didn't kiss her. He just smiled and looked away—down to where his hand would have been.

She leaned forward to kiss him and caught his cheek, but it almost seemed as if he didn't even notice. He was still watching his hand as it now trailed down her thigh and back up against her hip bone. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. He simply kept doing it; getting closer and closer to going between her legs, but just missing it…as if on purpose.

Victoire let her breathing become steady—waiting and not waiting for what was going to happen. Something about him teasing her made everything that much sexier, but at the same time she wanted him to go ahead. She wanted to feel what was about to happen. She arched her hips upwards slightly, which Ted must have taken that as some sort of hint because in the next minute he had abandoned all teasing and gone straight to work with his fingers.

She let a little noise escape her, a mixture of relief and pleasure as Ted did something with one—maybe two—fingers that made her entire body clench involuntarily. Whatever it was that he did, he did it fairly well. A clammy sweat formed on her brow and she trembled ever so slightly the more and more he focused on one particular spot.

Through a clenched jaw, she let out another noise, though this time it was anything but little. In fact, she was a little surprised where it had come from. If this were any other time, she probably would have stopped to laugh and comment on the sound if she could have somehow managed to pull her focus away from the pulsing that was running along her body…but she couldn't. So she didn't.

After several intensely charged seconds, the pulsing subsided and she opened her eyes. Ted was watching her face, a satisfied look of determination in his eyes that she loved every time she saw him make it. She really needed to give him more opportunities to make that face…

"I really could watch you do that all day," he said.

"I could let you watch me do that all day," she said as her heartbeat thumped in her ears, the adrenaline now taking over. She sat up suddenly and reached out to pull Ted close. "I…Let's…I want to…" She drew him closer and kissed him, not feeling like she had to say anything more.

Ted let himself be pulled; not hesitating for a second when she pulled him down on top of her and made it perfectly clear what she was getting at. He didn't hesitate when he used his knee to create a part between her legs where he could situate himself, and he didn't hesitate before he reached out to grab his wand and mumble a quick spell. He also didn't hesitate when he set his elbow down on either side of her to balance his weight against the mattress, but rather, he only hesitated right before he had to enter.

In that moment, he looked her in the eyes, his face full of a strange mixture of confidence and anxiousness. Victoire knew right then that she'd never forget that look for as long as she lived. Before it had even happened, she knew that when she thought back on this occasion that that would be the thing she'd remember most.

"I'll go slow," he said, searching her face for any sort of objection.

She nodded quickly, already bracing herself. She had no idea how this would feel, but she held her breath as Ted slowly began to edge his way inside of her. He pushed in a little, then a little more…

"Tell me if it hurts," he said, watching her face.

She nodded, though she hadn't thought it was all that bad. If that was all there was to it, then this wasn't a big deal at all—

A small pressure-like pinching pain ran through her at that very moment. She realized then that Ted had finally finished entering all the way in, whereas she had thought she was done before. That had been a little unexpected. She swallowed hard and closed her eyes, feeling as though it would pass if she just gave it a second. It had to pass.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded her head, but kept her eyes closed. "I'm okay."

"You're sure?"

The pain was slowly disappearing, though the pressure remained fixed in place. She supposed the pressure she could deal with. All it took was the getting the awkward first time jitters out of way before she could really appreciate everything that was going on. That's all there was to it.

But nothing was happening. Ted hadn't moved since he'd last spoken, and Victoire realized he was still watching her. She could only imagine the grimace of sorts she had spread across her face after the shock of the pain had hit her. Ted looked as if he was afraid to move.

She forced her face calm and let her hands travel reassuringly up and down his arms before smiling at him. "I'm sure. Go ahead."

Ted took that moment to look down, seemingly watching where they were now unmistakably connected below. He pulled out a little bit, looked back up at her to check her reaction, and then slowly went back in.

Victoire closed her eyes again and took a deep breath. It had felt better the second time he went in—and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth, and so on. Her body was slowly adjusting to the feeling of him now being inside of it. She could start to see how this could be enjoyable once she was used to it. She was actually already contemplating the next time they could do it so she could know it felt like to have a second time without all the jitters.

Ted's steady breathing was what made her finally open her eyes. He wasn't looking at her at the moment, but rather had his eyes closed as he continued to thrust slowly in and out over and over again. It wasn't until she reached up and grabbed him around the elbows that he opened his eyes and looked at her.

"You okay?" he said through a heavy breath.

She smiled and nodded, suddenly feeling the urge to arch her hips upwards against him. She wasn't sure why she did it, but Ted groaned and bit his lip as she did. It seemed to have made what he was doing a little easier on him, which she made a mental note of for the future. Maybe this was far more instinctual than she had thought.

"Are you okay?" Victoire asked, reaching up to run her hands through his hair. When she did, Ted lowered himself further onto her. She could feel the weight of his body against her, and he was heavy, but not too heavy; it was something she could adjust to. More noticeably, he was sweaty, and when she reached up to lay her hands on his back, she could feel just how moist he was.

"I'm better than okay," he said quietly, leaning down to kiss her for a long, long moment before leveling his face right over hers to look her in the eyes. "I'm going to go a little faster, okay?"

She nodded.

"Just tell me if…" He bit his lip again, but never finished that sentence. He seemed completely involved in what he was doing, or rather, what he was feeling. He'd picked up his pace and was thrusting faster now, which increased the pressure she was feeling down below, but not badly enough that she was going to say something. In fact, the more she got used to it, the more she rather liked how the pressure was starting to feel. Ted's quicken pace was causing a different sensation to pang at her.

She wanted to close her eyes and take in the rest of the experience, jumping back and forth between awkward pressure and pleasurable sensations, but she couldn't take her eyes off of Ted's face. It was almost as if she was looking at a different person, and certainly a side of him she'd never seen before. The expressions he was making, the way his muscles in his chest and his arms and his face were contracting, and the look in his eyes were all things that were brand new to her. But that wasn't even the thing that struck her the most. What struck her the most was that she knew so very few people had ever seen this side of him…

And she knew for a fact that none of them appreciated it as much as she did. There was no way anyone else could.

He continued to thrust a little harder and faster, looking away from her face to grit his teeth and swallow. "It's so tight…" he managed to mutter. "I don't know how much longer I can…" He swallowed again.

"Ted," Victoire said, not wanting him to look away. "Look at me."

He looked at her.

She leaned up to kiss him and he responded by passionately throwing himself into both the kiss and thrusting. The pattern of both changed at the exact same moment, and she was so caught up with how hard he was kissing her that she barely even noticed when his entire body tensed up until he groaned into her mouth and then let his head fall lamely to her shoulder. Moments later, before one last powerful thrust, he gradually slowed down all together.

Victoire's breath caught in her throat as she leaned her head back against the pillow. A stray piece of hair fell into her eyes and she reached up to swipe it away, where she grazed her forehead and realized that she, too, was sweating. She felt slightly speechless now that all was said and done. All those years of wondering how sex would be, and about how life-changing it was and how nothing would ever be the same, it all now seemed silly. She still felt like the same person. She still felt like her. She didn't feel like she'd start looking at the world differently, and the only thing she felt differently about was how close she now felt to Ted. An entirely new realm to their relationship was now wide open.

Ted lifted his head up off her shoulder and looked at her.

She smiled at him the second they made eye contact. "Hi," she said softly.

He returned her smile before kissing her. "Hi," he whispered, picking himself up off her slightly to distribute his weight differently, though he didn't pull out. He seemed to be trying to figure out what his next move was in terms of maneuvering around.

"You make the greatest faces during sex," Victoire said, wanting to say something, but not knowing exactly what was right for the moment.

Ted laughed as he pulled himself off of her in the next second and rolled off to the side of her. "You looked like you were in pain for a second there."

"I was a little when you first…" she searched her mind for the right word, "entered."

"A little's to be expected, I guess," he said, taking his bed sheet and looking as if he was wiping himself up. "I just didn't want it to be too uncomfortable."

"I'll get used to it," she said, as Ted dropped his head into the space beside her on the pillow. "Practice makes perfect, right?"

"Well, I'm open for all the practice you want," Ted said before he sat up and looked over at his bedside table. He suddenly aimlessly reached out for something, but whatever it was, he couldn't seem to find it.

"What are you looking for?" Victoire asked as she once again tried to watch what he was searching for.

Ted looked back at her and smirked just a little. "I think I have a coupon for this."


End file.
